Panna cotta = Piedmont

P = Piedmont panna cotta

a traditional registered recipe since 2001

Let's be real... who doesn't like panna cotta?? Simple and versatile, it's a world wide people pleaser from Piedmont!

Panna cotta literally means cooked cream, and we mean heavy whipping cream. This is because according to the registered traditional recipe here in Piedmont, NW Italy, you make it by cooking heavy whipping cream with sugar, vanilla or a citrus peel, and by adding gelatin. This is the very basic recipe you can serve with fresh fruit, coulis, natural syrups, chocolate and / or coffee sauce. 

Keep reading for our recipe.

Different versions of panna cotta have been around in Europe since at the very least 1244 when Henrik Harpestræg, a Danish doctor who had studied in Sicily, included in one of his books moos hwit - a dessert almost identical to panna cotta.

Even though, up to the 1960s there is no mention of panna cotta in the Italian cookbooks, legend has it that we owe it to a Hungarian lady who in the early 1900s had moved to the Langhe wine district (Unesco World Heritage Site) here in Piedmont.

grissini: a royal treat

Most people outside of Italy are familiar with American breadsticks; most tourists in Italy and die hard Italians outside of the boot enjoy their lunch meats rolled up on a grissino or ... Italian breadstick.

bottom left: firt rate, bottom right: Turin style

Piedmont royal cookies

or savoiardi better known in English as Lady fingers 😋

These are the top royal Piedmontese cookies invented in the 14th century by the chef of Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy when the King of France and his court came over to Turin for an official visit.
They loved them so much that that's how savoiardi became the official royal cookies and were offered to all the royal guests as a symbol of the local cuisine.